Misconceptions
by Anti-Kryptonite
Summary: Belle thought she knew what to expect out of life, and Rumplestiltskin thought life was simple. They were both wrong.
1. Ebb And Flow

A/N: Just watched Once Upon A Time and I can't even put into words how much I love Rumplestiltskin and Belle (and Baelfire). I tried to resist writing anything for a show that's not yet finished, but I didn't resist very well. :) This is just a little something that only took two days to write, but I hope you enjoy it. I'd love to know what you think-thanks!

Disclaimer: Multiple episodes and dialogue from the show are referenced or quoted within this story; they were written by others and don't belong to me. No copyright infringement is intended.

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Misconceptions

Belle: Ebb And Flow

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Belle had never imagined that she would spend her life in an estate called the Dark Castle, cleaning rooms, and dusting a vast collection of artifacts—some of which were valuable in a way surely only her master knew—and lugging straw into the main hall and gold out of it, and serving tea to the one person everyone in every kingdom was equally awed and frightened by. The one person who owned her. The one person who always, for some reason, chose the cup she had chipped on her first night in her new home to drink his tea from.

Rumplestiltskin.

If she had never imagined her life turning out as it had recently, she had certainly never imagined him either. He was both everything people said about him in hushed whispers with fearful glances thrown over their shoulders and nothing like their fears and recommendations at all. Her father had called him a beast, Gaston had named him a monster, and there was evidence in what he called his collection to support that theory—twisted puppets and dark vials marked with magical symbols and countless papers filled with names of the people who had owned the things he now possessed—and yet he did not seem a monster at all, not in person, not face to face.

Oh, sure, there had been 'her room.' The dungeon. It had been dark and dismal and damp, and being allowed out to serve him tea and receive his list of tasks for her to see to had been a relief, but she hadn't stayed there long. She'd only been with him a week, just starting to make a dent on all the rooms he had shown her, just finally learning her way around the large castle, when she'd come down with a fever.

She'd been so terrified, afraid that her sickness and the fact that she hadn't been able to drag herself up to make his breakfast would break their deal. All she had been able to think about was her father and all the people who depended on her for their safety. The ogres were nothing to sneer at, after all. For a long time, they had dominated any and all of her thoughts, casting shadows over her dreams of the future, haunting her memories of her past. She couldn't bear to think that her village would wake up after only a week of safety to find ogres invading yet again.

And then he'd been there, and she had been moving, and she still wasn't sure whether he'd actually carried her or used his magic, but she'd slowly realized that she was lying in a soft bed and there were warm blankets around her and the lights that had been boring into her skull were dimmed. And he was there, looking down at her, his peculiar gold-brown eyes fixed on her, drawing her out of the fear- and fever-induced haze.

"I'm sorry," she'd murmured, astonished at how smooth she felt, how all her sweat and lethargy had seemingly drained away, leaving her exhausted and hollowed-out and better. "I'm sorry, but please, please don't send the ogres back."

"Nonsense," he'd said in what she now knew as his customary matter-of-fact, teasing manner. "I don't waste caretakers as carelessly as all that. I'll put you into a sleep for a day or two and you'll wake up good as new."

Relief had swelled up within her and carried her away into a sleep heavier and deeper than any she'd ever experienced before. And when she woke up, he had been there, never giving a hint that playing nursemaid to his prisoners was unusual for him at all—though it had certainly never been mentioned in any of the rumors and whispers and legends about him—never mentioning that she owed him anything for his healing. He'd poured tea for her and told her to sit up, and even though he had never touched her, she had felt inimitably touched.

Since then, she'd stayed in that warm, cozy room, and he'd never said a word about her moving back to the dungeon.

There was a lot he didn't say, actually. He never explained where he went during his frequent absences, or why he'd return so suddenly, sometimes to stay for days in a row, other times to leave again right away. He never revealed where he'd acquired the things in his collection. He never asked her about her family or friends or past. He never told her that he enjoyed having her there. He never explicitly said that she didn't need to be afraid of angering him over things like a chipped cup or a life-threatening fever or tearing his curtains. He never voiced the fact that he liked that she laughed at his odd, amusing sense of humor. But then, he didn't need to say many of those things; they were evident all on their own.

Some days, she received more than others from him. Some days, she could hardly breathe he gave her so much, quips that made her laugh and smiles that stole her balance and startlingly serious moments that left her dazed and struck and unbelievably affected. And then other days, there was nothing, just silence and stares past her and spinning, spinning, spinning, so much spinning that surely made sense if she just knew why he did it. And then, of course, there were the days he was gone, when minutes seemed like hours and hours like days and the moment he made it apparent to her that he'd returned was as sudden and stark and brilliant as a firework exploding in her face.

Her life, this life she had never imagined—_their_ life—was an ebb and flow, really, a constant tide made up of currents she couldn't predict or make sense of but that she could nonetheless rely on. She learned, quickly, to wake up and take whatever came her way. If it was the silence and the stares and the spinning, she stayed quiet and made sure he had straw and tea, which was all he wanted from her during those times, and warmth and light, things he never mentioned that he wanted but never said he didn't either, and sometimes she thought that they made the silent days pass much more quickly and remain fewer in number. If it was the absence that greeted her like a slap every time she woke to make his breakfast and realized by the dimness and emptiness that he was gone, she did as much cleaning and dusting and rearranging as possible to fill up the empty hours and hasten his reappearance.

And then there were her favorite days, the days that always made her smile when she woke and moved into the kitchen and put on his tea to warm. The days when he teased her and laughed with her and invited her to sit beside him as he drank his tea—always from the same chipped cup. Those were the days she savored and enjoyed, laughing and smiling and sitting beside him and doing whatever he wanted her to because she wanted to do them herself.

She never could learn to predict which days which would be which, never could tell when the currents would ebb, leaving her alone and dry and empty, and when they would flow through her and past her, buoying her up, but she did learn to accept them.

Rumplestiltskin was complex and intense and mysterious and so much more layered than she had ever dreamed a person could be. And yes, he was damaged, but he was also more real and whole than anyone she had met. He was complicated, but the moments and hours and days between them passed so easily, so simply, so…so _happily_ that it didn't seem complicated in the least.

He didn't take offense when she first dusted one of his rooms of belongings and asked him, tactfully, whether he had arranged them himself. Instead, he smiled mockingly and said that she could rearrange them however she liked so long as he knew where everything was. And then, when she dragged out whole rooms' worth of items and organized each room to a common theme, he teased her about the dust on her face and snapped his fingers to move all the heavy things for her. And when she was done, he'd carefully walked through each room, his hands clasped behind his back, examining everything with his compelling eyes, his lips pursed, until he'd come to the end and turned to look at her. She'd stood there, trying not to be nervous, knowing by then that he wasn't likely to turn her into a snail or a frog on a whim, doing her best not to play with the skirt of the dress he'd given her with a casual shrug and the statement that she'd need something more than the ball gown she'd first come in.

"I knew there was a reason I saved your village," he'd said, and then chuckled to himself and walked past her toward the main hall. When she'd stood there, a smile on her face that she couldn't quite explain, he'd turned back and quirked his eyebrow and asked, "Aren't you coming?"

He never grew angry when she thought he would, never complained when she messed up his dinner—because she was a bit rusty on cooking and as much as she wanted to do well for him, sometimes she was a little late pulling the meal away from the fire—never snapped at her when she asked a question he clearly didn't want to answer, never refused her when she wanted to borrow one of his books, never even threatened to use his magic against her. And yet, just as she had convinced herself that he didn't have a temper at all, he scared her half to death, turning from his spinning wheel and dropping his newest chain of gold and lunging for her.

"Don't touch those!" he'd yelled, batting her hands away from the puppets she'd been rearranging on their stand. "Never touch those! Stay away from them!"

She'd stumbled back, more startled than anything, the whispers about what Rumplestiltskin did to those who displeased him running through her mind even though she'd thought she'd banished all those falsehoods after he'd cared for her during her fever.

At her stare, he had calmed, the puppets righting themselves by magic. "I promised I'd take care of them," he'd said more quietly. "You can clean the rest, but these are mine."

"Right," she'd murmured. "Sorry."

He had fussed over the dolls a moment more before returning to his spinning wheel while she had hurriedly turned and busied herself with something else, and that had been the end of it. Or so she had thought, but maybe that incident had been the reason he'd spent the entire night spinning, slowly, careless of the gold he made, staring instead at the wheel so gradually moving, as if he thought the movement of the wheel would purge something from his mind. She had stayed close to him, keeping the fires going, wordlessly offering him tea that he ignored, but in the morning, he'd left and hadn't returned for nine days, the longest he'd ever been gone.

They had been the longest, slowest, dullest, emptiest days she had ever spent. There was only so much dusting she could do, even considering how large his collection was, and his laundry didn't take up nearly enough time, and there was no need to cook when he was gone and she didn't feel hungry at all. By the third day, she had been entertaining thoughts of trying to escape just to get out of the empty castle; by the fifth day, she had seriously wondered if she'd be stark raving mad by the time he came back; by the seventh day, she had been terrified that her mistake had so angered him that he'd decided to abandon her in the Dark Castle forever, that he would never come back to her at all; by the ninth day, she had fallen into an almost apathetic lethargy that made it hard for her to move at all.

And then she'd woken the next morning, and she'd known he had returned. The castle shone when he was present, not literally, but truly. It shone and vibrated with usefulness and happiness, felt realer and steadier and more solid, felt less like a castle and more like a home—more than her father's castle had ever felt. She couldn't explain it, but she couldn't deny it either, and a smile had sprang instantly to her lips. She had leapt from bed, all her lethargy completely evaporating, and dressed in a flurry and hurried to the kitchen. When she'd brought the tray into the main hall and seen him standing there by his spinning wheel—not touching it, just looking—she'd thought her smile might actually be big enough to make her burst.

She thought that maybe that was the moment she first began to suspect she felt more for him than possibly she should. At first she tried to convince herself she only felt so happy to see him because he was the only person she saw anymore. But it was more than that, more than the fact that he owned her, more than the way he could make her laugh even on the days when she ached with missing her father, more than just that he listened to her more intently than any in her father's court ever had or watched her more closely than Gaston ever had or talked to her more meaningfully than anyone else ever had. Or maybe those were all pieces of it, single currents that combined to make the tide flow over her.

For several days, she toyed with the idea. She held it in her mind as delicately as if it were the spun-glass swan figurine in one of the rooms upstairs, turned it over and over to examine it from every angle as studiously as if it were the puzzle box stowed in a drawer all on its own, thought on it more fixedly even than she thought on the child-sized clothing she had found in a bedroom all set up as if readied for a boy who might enter at any moment.

She had just been ready to set the idea aside—more out of frustration than anything—and dismiss it as a product of her loneliness, and then she'd woken one morning and Rumplestiltskin had been standing over her, and before she'd even had time to process how automatic and easy it felt to greet him with a smile, he'd smiled back at her and set a tray filled with breakfast before her with no explanation or excuse, just another quip about how she'd rearranged the kitchen so that he could hardly find anything.

And when she asked if he'd stay and eat it with her, when he sat on the edge of her bed, when he peered at her as if he wished he could puzzle her out or memorize her or maybe just keep her captured forever in that moment, she had felt her heart beating furiously in her chest, felt the breath catch in her throat, felt her stomach drop away. All good signs, but none of them as much proof that she had fallen in love with him as the way she suddenly and wholly wanted to make him as happy as he was making her this moment. Wanted to give him as much as he had given her. Wanted to make him smile the way he could make her smile. Wanted to chase all his ogres and demons and ghosts away as surely as he'd rid her world of them.

She loved him. She loved Rumplestiltskin.

It had made the breakfast, the whole day, pass in a crystal-clear haze of rediscovery, when everything he did or said took on a whole new meaning, as if she had been given new eyes. The day after that had passed much the same, and the day after that, until gradually she'd realized that she'd loved him for a long time, that maybe she'd been in love with him even before she'd met him or known his name—that she'd been born already loving him, just not recognizing that fact until now. And then she had wondered why she had been surprised at all, wondered how she hadn't known it, wondered why anything had seemed different when there was nothing more natural than to love him.

But then she had decided to take down the curtains and he had given her a beautiful red rose—the timeless symbol of love—and she had gathered enough courage to ask him about the child's clothing and had quelled a burst of happiness that he _could_ so obviously love…and he had released her.

Freedom. She had dreamed of it those first days after she had struck a deal with Rumplestiltskin. Staring despondently at the dungeon around her, shivering and huddled up in a ball, terrified the least wrong movement or word would see her transformed into some kind of creature, longing for freedom and trying to comfort herself with the fact that her imprisonment meant her family and friends were all safe.

She _had_ yearned for freedom, but how long had it been since she'd even thought of it? How long since anything outside the Dark Castle had called for her earnest attention? How long since she could bear to imagine a life without Rumplestiltskin's intriguing complexities and mysteries always there to tantalize and hypnotize her?

It had all seemed simple then. Even walking away, convincing herself that she wouldn't go back, that her father needed her, that she could rejoin the life she'd left what seemed an eternity ago. And knowing, somewhere deep inside herself, that she couldn't just walk away and only needed an excuse to turn around and fly back to him.

An excuse and a hope, and true love's kiss had been all she needed. Only, they hadn't been enough, not to counter the terrifying abruptness with which everything changed.

He never lost his temper, never grew angry with her, and yet he had erupted so suddenly, filled to overflowing with so much rage, so much raw fury, all flaring up and boiling over until the hot grip of his hands on her arms had temporarily overshadowed the memory of his lips feather-light and fairy-dust-gentle on hers, until the sight of his face twisted in rage and suspicion and hastily hidden hurt had consumed the memory of his eyes, so wide and deep and disbelieving, gazing into hers with the beginnings of hope.

She did not understand him. Did not understand why he could be so happy and amusing and vibrant one day and so empty and sad and preoccupied the next. Did not understand why he thought he was a monster when he could be so gentle and giving and spontaneously compassionate. Did not understand why he could look at her with the love she was sure matched her own and then the next moment give himself over in immolation to all the darkness she had seen in him and hoped to help soothe away.

She didn't understand him, but she did love him. A night spent in the dungeon, replaying everything that had happened over and over again, realizing that her chance meeting with the queen on the road hadn't been such a chance after all, knowing he was afraid and hurt and heartbroken even though she didn't know why or how—all of it enough to convince her that she loved him no matter how much he shook her and shouted at her that she couldn't.

She loved him and it didn't matter because he'd sent her away. And even knowing why he did it, even seeing past the artificial masks and desperate lies to the hurt and fear and desperation and wistful longing, it had hurt her more than anything. It had made the days when he'd been away seem the mere blink of an eye in comparison to how slowly days moved without even the memory of his presence in the things around her. She would take those days—the days when he was gone—back in a heartbeat because at least then she'd known he would return eventually.

She would take his dungeon back in less than a heartbeat because it had been infinitely better than the cell she had been locked in, the cell lit only by diffused sunlight and the infrequent, rare visits from the woman she hadn't known then but now knew as the queen she'd met on the road leading away from Rumplestiltskin.

She had always thought of their life together as an ebb and flow, as tides that might recede but would always rise again, that might leave her for a transient amount of time but would always return to soothe and amuse and comfort and entrance her. It was only when the doors to the Dark Castle had closed behind her, when she'd faced days and days and weeks and weeks and months and months without even a glimpse of him, when she'd forgotten him altogether and had nothing to look forward to and nothing to look back on save confusion as to how and why she'd ended up in the dark padded cell—it was only then that she'd realized maybe it wasn't an ebb and flow.

Maybe it was all or nothing.

She'd had it all, even imprisoned and alone and confused. She'd had it all because he'd been with her and he'd teased her and he'd laughed at his own jokes and looked startled when she laughed too and he'd taken care of her when she was sick and brought her breakfast in bed for no particular reason at all, just because he wanted to. She'd had it all even when he'd stared at his wheel and spun endlessly and never spoke a word and seemed to look right past her, had it all because she'd been with him and she'd been able to ease his darkness and offer him some light and hope and draw him back to her and take care of him, not because of their deal but because she'd wanted to.

She'd had it all until she hadn't. It had been more than an ebbing away, more than a receding. It had been nothing. No hope, no love, no point, and she had wandered aimlessly.

All or nothing.

Rumplestiltskin or nothing.

Synonymous. No difference at all. Silly, maybe, to fall in love with her captor and lose purpose when he threw her out of his life, and hardly as brave or heroic as she'd always wanted to be. Seeing the world hadn't mattered, though, not without him. She'd wandered and traveled, and yet none of it had meant a thing because he hadn't been there with her.

All or nothing.

She had never imagined the twist her life would take, never known that she would have it all only to have it all taken away from her, never dreamed that she would forget all that had happened only to remember it all again so suddenly it struck her as if it were that firework now exploding so brilliantly in her vision.

And he was there in front of her. His back to her, limping, leaning heavily on a cane, moving forward. But there. Calling her. Promising her his protection. His eyes—so different and yet just as deep and compelling—staring into hers with so much amazement. Human. An ordinary man.

Belle had never imagined that her life would turn out this way. She had never imagined a curse and her efforts to break it transforming her life so drastically. She could not begin to understand how she had come to be in this strange world where magic was only a legend and the everyday news of her world's kingdoms were mere fairytales. She didn't know why her memories had so suddenly and completely been returned to her.

But she knew one thing: for so long, she'd had nothing, and now, in her grasp, striding ahead of her, there was everything.

He was complicated and complex and layered and mysterious, and yes, there was a darkness in him. But he was her everything, so it was simple and uncomplicated and oh so easy to open her mouth and speak the name that had been etched into her heart so deeply his rejection could not sear it away and forgetting him could not obscure it.

"Rumplestiltskin. Wait."

Everything standing in front of her, stopping in his tracks—when had he gotten a limp?—slowly, so slowly—as slowly as he'd stared at that spinning, spinning, spinning wheel—turning around to look at her, his expression so arrested and fearful and breathless.

She knew what nothing felt like. Knew what it was to live with nothing. And she knew what everything felt like. Knew what it was to live in the light of his smile and the feel of his arms catching her and the bliss of his lips on hers. And knowing those things, how could she _not_ take the chance on getting everything back? How could she not try?

"I remember," she said, and smiled because golden skin or not, scales or not, peculiar pupils or not, limp or not, she loved him. And it felt so _good_ to finally see him again. "I love you."

And he moved forward when she did, and his arms were opening to receive her, and he was smiling to match hers, and then his arms were encircling her and his warmth was easing its way into her and his smell was still the same, so unique and tangible, otherworldly allure mixed with the grounding scent of wool. And then he was whispering in her ear, words she had longed to hear, words she had hoped were true, words that banished all the nothingness and filled up every crevice of her heart with a collection, not of concrete valuables, but of memories and feelings and dreams, all of them precious and valuable because they contained Rumplestiltskin.

"Yes. Yes, and I love you too."

Precious words. Valuable words. Words of great worth. Because they came from him. He gave everybody what they wanted, gave them the desires of their heart, granted their wishes and fulfilled their dreams, and now he did the same for her by giving her his very own heart.

She had never imagined her life turning out this way, and yet…she wouldn't have traded it—wouldn't have traded him—for anything in the world.


	2. Give And Take

A/N: Thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed! I certainly feel very welcome here! :) Hope you enjoy the second chapter!

Disclaimer: Multiple episodes and dialogue from the show are referenced or quoted within this story; they were written by others and don't belong to me. No copyright infringement is intended.

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Misconceptions

Rumplestiltskin: Give And Take

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Rumplestiltskin had always known the world was simple. There were the strong and there were the weak. There were those who had and those who didn't. There were the brave and there were the cowards. Life was infinitely simple, divided up into stark contrasts, and it was never a question as to which side of the divide he was on. The strong took what they wanted, and the weak had no choice but to give it to them. The people who had enough took whatever they lacked from those who didn't have it in the first place, and those who had nothing were left with nothing else to give. The brave ended up with everything—wives and homes and children and respect and the storied happy endings—while the cowards were left abandoned and alone and weak, their all given and yet not nearly enough.

The world was all about give and take, really, just as giving and taking was the basis for every deal. Someone wanting what the other could give, the other finding something the someone had to take in exchange for what he gave. If you were weak or poor or afraid, you had no choice in what they took from you, but if you had power—if you had magic—you could make the rules, decide the terms, dictate the conditions.

Simple to decide what you needed. Simple to find something of equal value to trade. Simple to strike a deal. And the simplest, easiest thing to understand that if you broke the terms of an agreement, you had to pay the price.

Baelfire had been the simplest, easiest thing in Rumplestiltskin's entire life. His son, to love, to protect, to hold, to cherish. Loving him had come naturally, protecting him had taken more from him than he'd known he'd had to give, holding onto him had proven to be something he failed at, and finding him to cherish him as he deserved demanded Rumplestiltskin's all—his resolve, his focus, every ounce of planning he could conjure up, every deal he made. No matter what it cost, he knew he had to find his son, had to bring him back, had to let him know that he loved him, that he had changed his entire life for him, that he would never break another deal.

Simple, yet infinitely complicated. It had taken so long, so interminably, dreadfully long, to inch his way ever closer to a world without magic, a world with everything he wanted. So long, when his patience was stretched to the breaking point and his resolve was strained with loneliness and his focus was diverted by the growing reluctance to return from his travels to an empty castle.

That was a simple problem with a seemingly simple solution, and so he'd made a deal that had had nothing to do with finding Bae, a deal that had brought another person into his life. Easy to find people to help him; easy to rid himself of them should they grow troublesome. Easy, because he was the one with the power now, the one who was strong, the one who had, the one who was brave.

Or so he'd thought.

But Belle had been different from the beginning. He'd known before he posed the deal that she would accept. Another easy rule—always make certain the interested party would accept the deal before posing it. Her little village in danger, her family in trouble, her friends in peril…how could she not have accepted his deal? Her father might protest and her fiancé might sputter, but he'd known at a single glance that she was one of the brave. She wasn't particularly strong—princess of a flyspeck village, physically small, almost no influence to speak of—she had nothing—not after the ogres had threatened her life and drained her father's treasuries—but she was brave.

Brave enough to follow him to the Dark Castle. Brave enough to tentatively smile at his joke about skinning children. Brave enough to suggest rearranging the contents of his valuable collection. Brave enough to walk into her own dungeon every night for that first week. Brave enough to give her all to this deal she hadn't asked for and yet had accepted. Brave enough to hold him captivated.

He hadn't realized, then, that he'd wanted a caretaker for his estates more for himself than for the dust accumulating atop his collection. Magic could rid his estate of the dust, and yet it had never occurred to him not to take Belle to the Dark Castle. Maybe because for all his power, all the magic he possessed, all the influence he held, he still wasn't any braver or wiser than he had been when he was called Hobblefoot and only a young, bright-eyed, earnest boy had loved him.

Belle had been different, and she had captivated him, but she had still been nothing more than a diversion. Or so he had thought. He had thought it only a whim to move her from the dungeon to a real room, and since a fever had been the easiest way to accomplish that, it had required little effort to move her. He had thought it only a curiosity to let her rearrange his collection and make her mark on the castle and turn all the rooms inside and out. He had thought it only an amusement to make himself invisible and watch her as she prepared a tray to take him for lunch, thought it just a fluke that she had stopped her humming and turned with a smile as if to greet him only to frown in puzzlement when she hadn't seen him standing there. He had thought it all still simple and uncomplicated right up until the moment he'd turned to see her lifting his wooden companions.

Natural to react immediately. Natural to raise his voice. Natural to knock her hands away. All still simple and uncomplicated—she had nothing of value equal to the bespelled husband and wife—except that she'd stared up at him with wide eyes that swallowed up the light and refracted back an image all too familiar.

Bae. Staring at him. Horrified. Uncertain. Astonished. Backing slowly away. That foreboding "No" when Rumplestiltskin had asked him if he felt safe.

And now it was Belle staring at him, backing away, eyes wide and uncertain and astonished, mouth open as if to say her own single, negating word.

And there was nothing at all simple or uncomplicated about his immediate desire to calm her, to soothe her, to quiet himself, to back away and make himself seem less intimidating. It was the first time he'd ever felt that way since he'd put hand to the dagger that now bore his name, the first time he'd diluted his own reaction for someone else since forcing a smile and reluctantly reaching across a simple table to shake the hand of his own son.

Simplicity disappeared and complications abounded, then, all of it resting on the slender shoulders of his newest acquisition, tied up in the long silky strands of dark, gleaming hair, shining from crystalline eyes that cast light into the darkest shadows of his soul.

He'd panicked, then, and had fled with the sudden realization that he hadn't been traveling as much as he had before she'd come to live with him, that he'd been staying closer to his estate than ever before, that he'd been reluctant to leave for too long. But he'd run from the look in Belle's eyes, the expression he'd seen one too many times, and even while running, he'd hated his own cowardice, hated that for all his power and riches and plans, he was still as afraid as he had been before he'd become a whispered name on the lips of everyone in the land.

It had horrified him, the thought that he'd been losing his focus, his determination, his _desperation_. She'd made him take his eyes off his goal, even if only temporarily, and so he'd stayed away from the Dark Castle for long days, redoubling his efforts, sowing seeds, planting useful rumors, gathering more magic, more knowledge, more pieces of the curse he'd been slowly, oh so slowly building, harvesting more of the deals he'd begun preparing before he'd struck that one careless deal for a caretaker.

Always before he'd felt a sense of accomplishment with every step that took him closer to a magic-less world, but Belle had never once left his mind during that long, driven absence, and he'd found himself counting the hours he was gone, which made him even more determined to stay away from her.

Nine days before he'd been able to remind himself that Bae mattered more than anything—_anyone_—else, that his sin in regards to his son still demanded atonement and reparation. Nine days before he'd returned to the only place he had to call home no matter that it never felt anything other than empty. Except…except that it hadn't felt empty while she'd been there. It had glowed and shone and thrummed with life and vibrancy and smiles and tiny laughs at the jokes he'd grown used to enjoying on his own now that everyone else was too afraid to laugh with him.

And so he'd stood at the spinning wheel and for the first time, he'd tried to remember instead of forget. For the first time in years, he'd consciously thought back to the scent and sight of his son, to the sound of his voice, to the feel of him reaching out to help him stand from the ground or walk steadily. He'd felt his usual melancholy, the customary seething morass of regret and rage and resolve and fear, and then Belle had walked in and he'd smiled without thought.

He'd smiled. His grief still there, his regret still lurking in the background, his resolve still as strong as ever, and yet he'd smiled and felt stronger, more capable of accomplishing his goal. It had been a strange feeling, one he hadn't entirely understood. He'd known only that it was dangerous. Regina used him and came to him for help, but she would strike at the slightest sign of weakness, and Belle…he'd thought she was a weakness even though she seemed the very opposite of weak. So he'd come up with a plan elegant in its simplicity.

He'd test Belle, scare her away, bring that familiar arrested expression back to her face, make her say that one negating word so that he could rid himself of these strange, complicated feelings within himself. He'd been sure that it would be easy to give her the truth of who and what he was and let her resulting reaction take away the piercing tingles she'd left in his chest.

Only…it hadn't worked that way. He'd followed her while she worked, come up unexpectedly behind her in dark hallways, smiled at her toothily and threw out comments about deals he'd made and what he could do with his magic. But she'd only talked to him as she worked, smiled at him when she turned to see him, laughed at his comments, and kept doing all she'd done before. And instead of helping him rid himself of her, she'd sunk deeper inside him, wrapping herself more tightly around him.

So he'd brought her breakfast one morning, knowing that she would recoil from the sight of him looming over her, knowing he would finally be able to use her horror and fear to expunge her completely from his thoughts. And instead, she'd opened her eyes and seen him…and she'd smiled. She'd slowly sat up, and caught her breath when he offered her the tray of breakfast as excuse for his presence, and invited him to sit beside her and share the breakfast.

It was beyond understanding, beyond complicated, beyond anything he could comprehend. He'd sat there and stared at her and wondered who she was and how she could be so brave when he was so afraid. And when he'd teased her about her plans for the day and made a comment about bargaining for another cleaning girl to keep her company, she'd paused, her eyes downcast, and said, "Well…I suppose. But I'm rather fond of the company I have now."

He'd had nothing to say, as tongue-tied as he'd been before he'd ever heard of a magical dagger, so he'd taken a sip of tea and contemplated the chip in its side and known that she had marked him as surely as she'd marked the cup and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing he _wanted_ to do about it.

So when he thought on Bae and had to retreat to his spinning wheel to recapture that little bit of who he used to be, when he found it hard to see anything except for that green flash of light as his whole world disappeared into another, when he could think of nothing except the feel of Bae's hand in his and the sound of his voice proclaiming their deal struck and the sight of his excited, happy smile lighting his face, when he couldn't help but remember what came next—well, then it seemed natural for Belle to be there. For her to be sitting at his side. For there to be a hot cup of tea when he reached for one. For the darkness to be dulled by the lights she kept burning. For the straw to never run out as he spun endlessly into the night. For the consuming grief inside him to seem smaller and weaker and less overwhelming.

It wasn't simple, not really, but it was natural and easy and _right_ to settle into his days with her. And if he didn't leave as often as he had before she was there, well, he still did what he needed to do, still played his chess game with the world around him, moving ever closer to the day when he'd make the ultimate trade-off and exchange this world for another, his magic for none, his power for his son. If he didn't spin as much as he had before, well, he had more gold than he could use and other things to occupy his attention and help him forget. If he smiled more than he had in years, well, there was nothing wrong with that so long as he did not forget Bae, and there was certainly no danger of that.

And then Belle had torn down the curtains he'd kept over his heart, and she'd fallen straight into his arms, and her warmth had seeped into him, and envy had filled his heart at the sight of a man who had nothing he wanted and yet so easily _could_, and she'd taken his gift—freely given with not even a thought to taking anything in exchange—and smiled at him in such a way that he'd found it hard to breathe, and spoken of love being a mystery as she stared at him with eyes that threatened to peel away all his layers to find the crippled coward hiding beneath golden skin and perfect gait and eyes that saw a person's desires with every breath they took.

"You're not a monster," she'd said, and she'd sounded as if she'd meant it, and for a moment, he'd almost believed it. "You think you're uglier than you are," she'd told him, and it'd been clear that she didn't see the darkness and the blood and the broken deal and the ugliness others saw, and for an instant, he'd almost seen the same thing. She'd looked at him in a way she never had before, and she'd never flinched away from his touch, and all at once, he'd recognized the feelings swelling up in him and buoying up his heart and catching the breath in his throat.

All the same things that he'd felt before proposing for his wife, before marrying her, before everything had started falling apart, before all these wonderful, terrible feelings had morphed into pain and regret and confusion and loneliness.

Every deal was all about give and take, but he'd had nothing to give Belle and nothing he could take from her, and she would have recognized that eventually. So he'd set her free.

He hadn't been able to tear her from his mind, and so he'd given her away.

But it hadn't worked because she'd come back. She'd come back and he'd felt the darkness that had descended the instant the door closed behind her—the darkness that had made it impossible even to sit at the spinning wheel and had made him instead retreat to a tower she'd never set foot in—break and shatter and go spiraling away. Everything he thought he knew was rewritten and remade and reordered, his entire life rearranged before her, and it baffled him.

He was a monster—he knew it; everyone in the kingdoms knew it; why couldn't _she_ see it?—an inhuman imp with nothing to offer her. Deals were made between parties who could find something mutually beneficial to agree on, but there was nothing between them, nothing similar at all, so why did she come back? She was beautiful and brave and bold and bright as a twinkling star, and he was old and used up and flawed and corrupted and haunted.

Every deal was all about give and take, giving what the other wanted so he could take from them what he wanted. With Belle, he gave her freedom, and she took his focus. He gave her pain, and she took his heart. He gave her all he had to give, and she took his resolve. He gave her snippets of his past, and she took pieces of his blame and guilt. He gave her…he gave her nothing, and she gave him everything, and how was that a good deal? How was that a bargain he could agree to when he had always—always, since Bae—tried to make certain the other interested party agreed to as good a deal as they deserved?

It didn't make sense and yet she'd set her hands on his shoulders and taken the wool from his hand and sat beside him and leaned into him and asked him for the truths behind the legend of Rumplestiltskin.

He could not understand her, could not see the world the way she did, could not figure out why she would give up freedom to return to him. He didn't understand Belle…but he did love her. And peering deeply into her eyes, trying so hard to see himself in the reflection of her clear soul, he'd felt so much, _too_ much, all of it realer, deeper, truer, and so much more inescapable than anything he'd ever felt for Bae's mother, so much more that it was like a wildfire compared to embers in a fireplace. And he'd succumbed, like a moth to flame, a coward drawn to courage, and he'd leaned forward and kissed her—the impression of beauty and brilliance imparted to him through soft lips and hopeful eyes and warm hands—and then it had all come crashing down because he'd promised Bae that he would never take his eyes off him, never love anything else, and he could not, _could not_, break another promise to his beloved son. Only…only he already had because no matter whether he sent her away or not, he'd already fallen in love with her.

So he'd rejected her. He'd reached deep into his heart and ripped her from it and sent her away, spewing out words and accusations and his deepest fears, and ignoring with all his strength that the beginnings of his transformation back to a man proved just how much she did truly love him—and how much he loved her.

So much harder to face her and send her away forever after he'd released all the pent-up emotions clamoring within him, freezing and boiling the blood in his veins. So much harder, and yet he'd already given up his life and his humanity and his morality and his integrity and his future and would yet give up his magic for Bae, so what was one more thing? What difference would one more sacrifice added to the price he must pay for his broken promise make?

None. None at all. Or so he'd told himself, and he'd tried to keep it in mind through the long days when he'd had the energy and motivation to do nothing, make no deals, go nowhere, when he'd once more donned the heavy, grim outfits Belle had put away in favor of the softer outfits she'd found easier to wash. Everywhere he looked he saw her, in the clock and candelabra she'd dusted so carefully, in the curtains she'd risked her life to open, in the puppets that had sparked his realization that he was falling in love with her, in the rooms she'd rearranged, even in the spinning wheel—always before his consolation and refuge—and the basket full of the straw she'd brought back from the town. Everywhere he'd looked, she was there.

Until she wasn't. Until so few words destroyed him.

"She died."

He could have offered her a home, a sanctuary, a place to run to, but he'd sent her away, exiled her from his castle and his heart, turned his back on her, and now, once again, he could see that green flash exploding in front of his eyes to herald the end of his world, the disappearance of his universe. He could have protected her, but he'd shut her out, locked her away, failed to protect her, and she'd disappeared from his life as surely as Bae had. Once more he had loved, and once more he had lost.

Life wasn't simple, after all, wasn't about give and take at all. It was about loving or losing. It was full of people who dared to love and those who didn't. The world was either dark or light, and it was love and loss alone that determined which was which. It was divided between the stark contrasts of those who were loved and those who weren't, and there was never a question as to which side of the divide he was on, chipped cup or not.

There had no longer been any trouble in giving his all to his decades' old purpose, no hesitation in trading away the curse he'd worked so long and hard to perfect. He'd been too afraid to love when he should have, but no longer. He'd dare anything, brave anything, try anything, so long as it brought Bae back to him.

He'd have given as much to bring Belle back, too, but as powerful as magic made him, it couldn't fix death, couldn't erase the mistakes of the past. Nothing could do that. Not destroying the world, not remaking it, not taking on a new name, not living an entirely new life. He couldn't atone either; not by living alone, not by reclaiming the limp he'd once been so eager to be rid of, not by ensuring that the curse could be broken. He'd made his choices and his mistakes, and now he had to live with them while time had frozen, pausing him with no hope of forgetting Belle or finding Bae.

But that hadn't stopped him from imagining and dreaming. How many times had he stayed late at his shop and fantasized that her voice would drift in from the front? How many times had he looked up with his heart beating faster than he'd ever been able to run and imagined her standing there with some story about how she'd survived and finally made her way back to him? How many times had he walked toward her and reached out his hand only to have her vanish like smoke, evaporating into thin air? How many times had he stood there in the middle of the floor, leaning so heavily on his cane to avoid falling to his knees, his face fixed in neutral lines to stop himself from dissolving into tears, tears he'd already shed, tears enough to fill up the precious chipped cup a hundred times over?

How many times, and yet when he'd walked toward her, when he'd reached out his hand and curled his fingers around her arm, when he'd felt her warmth and slight solidity, when he'd looked into eyes even more crystalline and hypnotizing than he'd remembered, when he'd heard her voice speaking so softly and hesitantly to him…she hadn't disappeared. She was real. She was alive. She was here.

"Do I know you?" she'd asked, and he wondered if she did, if she ever had. She'd known him better than anyone else, but did she really _know_ him? Would she accept him—coward and failure and monster though he was—or would she turn away from him in fear?

She didn't know him. Didn't remember him. He'd dared to love, promised to protect her, and yet he'd lost her again because she was trapped in the curse he'd orchestrated.

But in his pocket he held the key.

Magic. It would point the way to his son…and it would restore Belle's memories. It would bring back the woman who'd looked at him with so much fondness and amusement and tentative hope and breathless discovery. It would let her remember everything—including his rejection, his violent reaction, his harsh suspicion, his brutal accusations, his damaging last words to her, his absence when her father had cast her out. A curse indeed, and yet how could he turn aside now? How could he turn his back on his son even though it meant that Belle would turn her back on _him_?

He couldn't. But the temptation to turn aside was looming over him, and so he hurried as quickly as he could, his cane digging into dirt, his feet stumbling over rocks and dips in the ground, his fear eating him up from the inside out, his back prickling to know that Belle was behind him, following him, watching him.

"We're very close," he told her, biting the words off because it'd be oh so easy to let other words slip out, to say all the things he'd imagined saying to her when dreaming that she was really alive and would walk into his shop. Now, no fantasy; now, reality. Or he thought it was. It had to be. She had been real beneath his touch. She had looked at him without any trace of recognition—something he'd never imagined in any of his fantasies. She…was saying his name. His _real_ name, the name he hadn't heard for so long. Saying it in a tone of voice no one had ever before used to say his name.

"Rumplestiltskin. Wait."

He was as frozen in his tracks as Storybrooke had been in time. Terror flooded through him, demanded that he not turn around and risk seeing rejection or hurt or anger on her face, commanded him to keep walking.

Loving or losing. Dare to face rejection or reject her in turn. He couldn't bear to live in fear any longer, didn't want to be a coward forever. He wanted to be brave, wanted to deserve her, wanted to be a man she could love without shame. He didn't want her to leave him. If he wanted her love, he had to love her. If he didn't want to lose her, he couldn't let her lose him.

And so he turned. Slowly, fixedly, terrified and trying so hard not to be, caught between wanting to forget what had happened and remembering every moment he'd spent with her in all its painful, wonderful glory. He was trembling, was upright only because he leaned on his cane, was looking her in the eye only because he could not tear his gaze away from her.

She was so beautiful, and she was walking toward him. There was something in her gaze he dared not read, an expression on her face he couldn't bring himself to interpret. If he'd still possessed the strength he'd had in the other world, he'd have crushed the handle of his cane in his white-knuckled grip.

"I remember," she said, and it was such an ambiguous statement that he could not understand why she was smiling. He remembered, too, remembered what he'd stolen from her and what he'd done to her and what he'd said to her. Remembered his fingers digging into her arms and her face turned away from him as he'd shouted at her. Remembered the beginnings of that familiar, dreaded expression on her face.

"I love you," she exclaimed, as if the words could be contained no longer, and she was smiling and crying at the same time, which seemed impossible but wasn't because he was doing the same thing.

And then she was in his arms, and all of his loss seemed to melt away, forced out, no room for it anymore next to the love filling him and possessing him and overwhelming him.

"Yes," he murmured brokenly.

He'd thought life was simple, thought the world was black and white, thought all that mattered was give and take. But he'd been wrong. Life was complicated, and the world was filled with shades and hues that rang with crystalline clarity and dark meaning, and there was no give and take, only love or loss. Belle gave him her heart, but he didn't want to take anything from her, and so he gave back.

"Yes, and I love you, too."

Her entire frame trembled in his arms, and he _felt_ her smile, and even though he had a limp and no longer possessed any magic and had only one arm around her because the other was holding them both up with his cane, none of that seemed to matter. Not to her, and not to him.

He knew what loss was. Knew what it was to live with the loss of everything he loved. And he knew what it was to love. Knew what it was to be brave enough to dare and give his heart away. Knew what it was to take on the fearful responsibility of accepting her heart, freely offered and given. Knew what it was to love and be loved. Knew what it was to finally find worth in himself because Belle loved him.

And finally Rumplestiltskin found something he could not trade, because there was nothing as valuable in any world in any universe.

The End


End file.
